knjiga eng web.indd - Astra

PREFACE
The Report is supported by examples from our everyday practice in dealing with victims
of human trafficking, their personal stories, as well as articles published in daily and
electronic newspapers. The source is given for each quote, while personal stories of the
victims of human trafficking are attached with their consent. In order to fully protect the
identity of our clients, their stories are marked by numbers from ASTRA’s database. For
the same reason, and in order to make certain examples clear to the reader, we did not
use real initials of the clients. In the Serbian version of the Report, the term “victim” or
“client” was used, because the translation of the English word “survivor” to Serbian is not
easy to use in all case forms.
Despite the desire to use in the Serbian version the male and female gender of nouns
equally, we apologize if this is sometimes not done because of the extensiveness of the
Report or the constructions and style of the sentence.
In the last ten years, ASTRA has actively worked in the Republic of Serbia on raising the
public awareness about the problem of human trafficking, direct assistance for the victims,
as well as building the mechanisms and capacities of institutions and non-governmental
organizations for suppression of this phenomenon. The continuous presence has given
us the possibility to witness the changes that happened both in relation to the trends
of human trafficking and to different responses of the state to this phenomenon, which
often depended on the political climate in the country and the personal advocating of the
individuals in institutions.
Ten years after adopting the UN Convention, the Republic of Serbia still has no budget
allocations for the suppression of human trafficking, no specialized shelters and programs
for children victims. The referral mechanism for victims of human trafficking has not been
improved ever since it was established and it currently consists of one employee in the
Agency for Coordination of Protection of Trafficking Victims, which is authorized for the
entire territory of Serbia. There are no developed indicators for identification, nor the
procedures for treating the victims. The provision of direct assistance depends exclusively
on two non-governmental organizations and ad hoc donations. There are no developed
(re)integration programs for victims of human trafficking at the level of the state. Until
today, none of the victims got a compensation for damages suffered during exploitation.
In the absence of an institute of the National Rapporteur for Human Trafficking in the
Republic of Serbia, this Report my serve as a chronological overview of the past activities,
but also for the evaluation of their efficiency.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA - Report for the period 2000-2010 13